Yes, you're right guys, the latest Fujifilm cameras have indeed sported the quoted number of photosites rather than employing scaling. I've just finished testing the S9500 (S9000) all-in-one model (with a 10.7x optical zoom and genuine 9 Megapixel resolution) and the review should be on the site later this week.

I'm looking forward to read your review and opinion about s9000, I'm a very satisfied user of this digicam since one month ago. I'm a wildlife/nature/mountaineering/landscape Photographer here in Italy, and for my job i've always preferred an all-in-one digicam then a SLR. SLR means too many lenses in my bag, too much weight and so on... I know that there's no comparison in image quality but for my job i DO prefer comfort and lightness. Climbing a mountain is impossible with 5 kilos of photographic equipment...
So s9000 with its 28-300 lens, fantastic fuji colors, 1 cm macro capability, great iso performance (for a non-SLR) is the answer to all of my dreams...
It's not the perfect camera but it's very close to it.
Perfect camera for me? S9000 with a bigger sensor like the Sony R1(that means even less noise), Image stabilization like Pana Fz30 and a decent software for Raw conversion (the one included is R I D I C U L O U S !)
I'll chek your site too see if you agree with my opinion.

Best regards
Guido
(Sorry again for my poor english... i'm still learning)

I bought this on Boxing Day as the best fit for what I wanted (upgrade to Fuji S3500) and a "bridge" to eventually buying a DSLR. The features of the camera and operation were excellent (bit plasticky though).

However the quaity of the photos was very poor. No problem for flat colour fields and straight lines but the pixels looked almost like an impressionist painting in other areas, spurious colours and details being introduced. And the purple fringing! In a side by side comparison with the S3500 (time of day, subject, ISO settings, apertures, compression settings equivalent, both cameras on tripod), the S9500's shots did not look good.

Very disappointing, particularly as my experience with the S3500 has been so good despite it having performance limitatons (lack of autofocus in low light, no true wideangle, contrast a bit high, etc) - the S3500 is sharp has required minimal post-processng and interpolates well up to a much larger image.

My concerns were further activated wen I read in the manual that going from 4:3 to 3:2 formats give you an extra 200 pixels in width (7%) but without change in lens coverage and no movement in the lens barrel. Surely this means that the camera is putting in a few extra that aren't on the CCD? Made me wonder if there were any others.

So I took the camera back, and I'm waiting to see if there is anything that will give me a substantial advance - the Panasonic FZ30 was delightful in operation with a excellent lens but unusually noisy. Perhaps the Canon - it seems to have the performance edge if the lens is right, or maybe Fuji and Panasonic will have improved CCDs.

My comments relate to both screen and prints. Slightly worse on screen (as expected). The test prints were done at 150dpi, which is probably less than one would normally want to print them out, but it certainly showed up some problems. A4 prints weren'tt so bad, but then my S3500 is perfect at this size, and the point of the exercise was to have a camera that would do better with the detail.

Of course, the argument is that with less compression or in RAW the results might be better, but for the point of the exercise I matched the compression ratio of both cameras.

My solution for increased quality is now to use the S3500 on lower compression and interpolate. The lens is sharp enough that the images will comfortably take interpolation up to 16mp (ie a 2x linear stretch), so it meant just getting a 512MB card to take the extra file size.

I must admit a feeling of disappointment, but my tests of other digital cameras indicate something of a plateau (technically speaking) at the consumer level with compromises in sensor design, compression and lens quality. The 10-12 MB Nikons and Canons with the high grade lenses would probably show a noticeable improvement.

In the "bridge" calss, should Panasonic come out with a better sensor and get the lens a bit wider than 35mm equivalent, the camera will be quite good. It already has excellent design and a fine lens (no extension on zooming - very impressive).

Ultimately, a combination of film and digital still seems to be the solution at this stage - a number of my photos require exposures of 30 minutes - easy with film and a mechanical shutter, but hard by other methods.

What are you looking at? I have 40+ years experience in film photography using 35mm SLR's and disagree with you completely. The photos taken with my s9000 compare very favorably with any film camera I've used. The prints are of excellent quality even blown up beyond 8x10. I don't see any of the problems you talk about except some chromatic aberration which is inherent in all long zooms.

Maybe I had a bad example. It's just that it came off markedly worse than my S3500 (spurious colours and details, excessive purple fringing) - and I didn't expect this. The shop I bought it from viewed the test results, agreed and took it back immediately.

It was problems with an A4 photo that initially alerted me to these issues, but in the right circumstances the camera takes nice shots.

However, I noticed a similar propensity on the Fuji S5600 - though less marked - where the compression program seemed to have trouble with "less defined" subjects - in this case inside a photo shop, shooting products in clear plastic packs. The dividing line between the pack and (pale) wall had a lot of interesting details in it that weren't present in reality, in the Fuji S3500, in an Olympus SP500 or in a couple of DSLRs that I was also examining at the time (settings on all were standardised so no camera had an advantage).

On a personal note, I use 35mm, medium format and large format cameras as well as digital. Each format has its advantages, and the level of control with digital imaging for colour photos is excellent.

After my negative experience with the S9500 I kept well away, but a series of unsatisfactory tests on DSLRs (poor kit lenses and some file processing problems) and high-end "bridge" cameras (noise, noise, noise - I can support the review here of the FZ50), I tried the S6500, which shared the S9500's lens.

It's amazing what a drop in pixel density can do. Really sharp 8 x 10s and a usable ISO 1600 (quite something for a "small chip" camera). The files can look a bit odd at 1:1 on screen and seem a little over-processed (further sharpening can give the file a bit of a fright), but they produce most satisfactory prints down to 150 DPI. Well the best of all the "small chip" cameras I've tried and now I'm a happy owner.

On the general design of the camera - not bad at all, comfortable to hold, nice big LCD, same lousy EVF from my S3500 (bit of cost cutting there), well placed controls and I don't miss the little control wheels. With the chip, the lens can show its true mettle - good geometry and lack of vignetting being impressive for such a long range zoom. Great to have the 28mm equivalent at the wide end. The only thing is - such a small chip, such a large camera. Hard to reconcile a lens that racks out to 150mm with its 67mm focal length, or is this the reason for the good vignetting performance.

I wonder if the chip is from the Fuji 7000. When the S6500 is used in raw, it specifies 12 megapixels - just like the 6MP 7000 could achieve through the design of the chip. The 7000 could JPEG to 12 megapixels, but it's just availavle in RAW with the S6500.

No matter - the S6500 is a more than competent camera at a great price.